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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586214">Reasons to Unplug the Landline</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyplanetboy/pseuds/lonelyplanetboy'>lonelyplanetboy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dirk Gently - Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>All this and more..., And towards the end/directly after S2, Book!MacDuff, Gen, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Several years after events of the first novel, What if Ken attempted to recruit Richard to Blackwing?, What if the book and the show had some crossover?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:49:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyplanetboy/pseuds/lonelyplanetboy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an outdated thing, really, and Susan keeps pestering him to remove it. But it isn't until he receives a particularly ominous call from an unknown American number that Richard MacDuff actually considers unplugging his landline.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reasons to Unplug the Landline</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Huge thank you to ephemeral_motif for beta-ing this fic! I very much appreciate it and give them big credit for making a lot of the technical language make any sense. More notes at the end about the book and changes I made. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>It had been several years since Dirk Gently had crossed Richard MacDuff’s mind.</p><p>It had been even more years since Richard had a run in with Dirk Gently, a run in which had involved police evasion, time travel, an impossibly placed sofa, alien music, a bit with dodo birds, and the unfortunately untimely passing of his then-employer, Gordon Way. Since then, he and Kate Anslem, the two star-programmers at WayForward Technology, had taken over the company. Richard still wasn't emotionally invested in WayForward, as he hadn't been at the time of Gordon's passing. However, now he had more control in the company, and, subsequently, gave himself fewer duties and longer deadlines. Kate easily took up the role of “boss,” much to his relief. He spent the next few years quietly finalizing and perfecting <em> Anthem </em> to what turned out to be a medium success. Since then, he had made a few other notable programs, as well as occasional updates to <em> Anthem </em>. Nothing that was so extraordinary that any sort of government had contacted him, but certainly things that were notable enough to get some profitable investors. Having relaxed his duties with his job after Gordon's passing, Richard had found more time to spend with his then-girlfriend, now-wife, Susan Way. Although he had many take-aways from his run in with Dirk, the most important one and one that had the most permanent effect on his life was his commitment to make more time for Susan. Since then, their budding but sometimes tense relationship had blossomed into a very supportive and healthy marriage. She was currently working a gig as one of the London Orchestra's best cellists, and he couldn't be happier for her. </p><p>It had been years since Richard MacDuff had thought about Dirk Gently, or the sofa, or even the time travel. He still thought about the alien music, often relaxing to J. S. Bach, but other than that, the events that had occured all that time ago seemed of little consequence to his present life. He was moderately successful, his dark hair slowly starting to grey, his thin figure slowly starting to thicken, his quiet life slowly winding down to what he had hoped would be an early retirement.</p><p>One day, the phone in Richard and Susan's flat rang.</p><p>Which was strange, Richard noted to himself. Strange, but not because he still hadn't canceled their landline. He had meant to get around to it many times but found that he trusted a landline rather than a mobile phone and could never bring himself to pull the plug. Despite being a programmer, he had found it difficult to adapt newer technologies into his own life, perhaps because he knew himself how easy they were to manipulate. Rather, it was strange that the phone was ringing in the first place. He couldn’t think of anyone who called his home on business terms anymore, and Susan took her calls on her mobile. Most of his business clients were given his mobile number and would call that, although he frequently left his mobile phone in the WayForward office building. He couldn't think of anyone he had told to call him on his landline in weeks, maybe months. Besides, it was a Saturday. There was always the possibility it was a spam call, but he had tried and—quite successfully, he thought—taught the little landline system to blacklist any caller who even appeared to be spam. So it was strange.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Richard picked up the phone. "Hello?" he asked.</p><p>"Hello," the voice on the other line replied. American. He frowned. "Is this Richard MacDuff?"</p><p>He didn't know any Americans, not any he liked, anyways. Not any who sounded like this. Not any who knew his phone number. "Yes. Who is this?"</p><p>The voice on the other line seemed pleased, almost too pleased. "Mr. MacDuff. I'm a huge fan of your work. Your program—<em> Reason </em>? Revolutionary."</p><p>Richard felt a wave of unease wash over himself. He hadn't heard that name in years, and he would've well prefered to never hear it again. "I'm afraid I can't help you," he said. "I'm not in the market to work for the Pentagon again."</p><p>"But, Mr. MacDuff—" That was all the confirmation he needed. He hung up the phone.</p><p>Susan arrived home from her Saturday yoga class about an hour later to find Richard intently making eggs and bacon in the kitchen.</p><p>"I know, I know, you're working to be vegan," he said before she could say anything. "You don't have to have to have any."</p><p>"What's wrong?" she asked, setting down her yoga mat.</p><p>"Nothing is wrong!" he said, flipping the bacon.</p><p>"You don't cook without being asked unless something is wrong," she said.</p><p>“Just got a weird phone call,” he said.</p><p>She frowned. “We need to get rid of the landline.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“We don’t use it anymore, right?”</p><p>“Yes. I mean—certainly you don’t. And I’m… working not to.”</p><p>“What was the call?” She put a hand on his shoulder. “You look all shook up.”</p><p>He sighed, trying to relax his shoulders. “It’s nothing—really. Just an old client. I don’t even know how they got our number.”</p><p>"The number hasn't changed in years," she said. "Over a decade we've had that machine. I'm sure loads of old clients have our number. Even from as far back as..."</p><p>"Gordon," he said. "Yes.” He fidgeted, cracking another egg onto his griddle. “They shouldn't have contacted me. I'm not interested in hearing from these guys."</p><p>"Do you think they'll call again? Did they want something?"</p><p>"Just wanted another job," he mumbled. "I'm not interested. The job I did for them was something Gordon pushed me into. Not... not something I'm interested in touching again."</p><p>"And you don't have to," she reassured him. "Let's unplug the machine for the night if you're so afraid of them calling. Who else is going to want to call you anyway? Anyone who needs to talk to you that badly has my number as well."</p><p>"You're right," he said. "Unplug the landline. Yes." But he had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. The fact that he'd grown afraid enough to want to turn off one of his oldest devices, a staple of his household, disturbed him. He didn't want to turn it off. He didn't want to pull the cord out of the wall. But he had the deep sense that Susan was right. It was the only way he'd be able to sleep at night.</p><p>Susan ended up being the one to rip the cord out of the wall while he finished cooking the eggs and bacon. She joined him for breakfast sandwiches and they had a lovely afternoon of lounging about, reading, laughing, and generally doing nothing. All the while, Richard couldn't get the American voice out of his head, nor the sense that someone was watching him.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Richard's return to work on Monday seemed largely uneventful at first. Kate greeted him at the office, and they had a brief coffee where she laid out the company plans for the week. Then, at around ten, he went to his office and logged onto his computer to work on code.</p><p>Logging onto his computer, he noticed his mobile phone, right where he had left it on top of a pile of unorganized and unfiled documents to the side of his desk. He would usually shrug it off and wait until his Monday lunch break to glance at his phone, sometimes waiting until as late as Tuesday to check his missed calls. After all, his ringer was on. If someone needed him while he was in the office, he would get back to them. But if they had missed him, he more or less followed the policy that those calls were not his responsibility to follow up on, nor would he let himself stress about the implication of a near-full messaging box on his phone. Phones could store a lot more messages than they'd used to be able to, and Richard found that this made them even more prone to abuse than the days when the messages were tape-recorded. Not that many people called him, but never checking your phone added up, and Richard was sure that what had once started as mild negligence had now become a mountain that he resisted with an almost moral code, not letting himself even acknowledge the existence of his full answering-box.</p><p>But something disturbing passed over him when he looked at the tiny mobile phone this morning. He thought about the American who had called him. He needed to check and make sure he hadn't received any international calls. If he hadn't—then fine. Then it was just one call, and Susan had unplugged the landline, and it was fine.</p><p>He reached for the phone and turned it on, unlocking it and scrolling to find the app for his answering machine. A red bubble in the corner reminded him he had missed out on at least half a dozen calls, and he clicked on the app, suddenly feeling a bit sick at the thought he would see an international number.</p><p>Much to his relief, his inbox was filled with calls from Susan, Kate, his mother, and a few of WayForward Technology's recent clients. He felt silly for having worried about it in the first place. Of course they didn't have his mobile phone number, that was bloody ridiculous. He leaned back in his chair, ready to toss his phone back onto the pile he'd found it on.</p><p>The phone started buzzing in his hand, his ringtone playing a particularly jazzy version of one of Bach's preludes. He looked down at the device.</p><p>It was an international number. An American number.</p><p>Richard felt a panic rising from his stomach into his throat. No. <em> No </em>. He had said he wouldn't do it. That was that. That was that! He clicked the decline call before he could think about it too thoroughly.</p><p>Disturbed, Richard set down the phone, almost gingerly, as if being careful would keep it from ringing again. He logged onto his computer, pulling up his work email. He quickly wondered about emailing Kate but shook it off. What would he say to her? That he was afraid of a man who had one of his very old programs and was calling him from across the ocean? What could an American do to him, anyways? He tried to calm himself, telling himself it was ridiculous to get so worked up.</p><p>He noticed the top email in his inbox. The subject line was "HELLO MR. MACDUFF."</p><p>The dread and panic returned much more quickly than it had taken for him to just barely lessen it's grips on his chest. He shook his head, clicking to open the email despite himself.</p><p>
  <em> Dear Mr. Richard MacDuff, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I am contacting you to commission your technical skills. I am a huge fan of your work. I do not mean to distress you. However, I think your abilities make you one of the best suited candidates in your field for what I need. </em>
</p><p><em> No, I am not from the Pentagon. I supervise an operation called Project Blackwing. We are, as you may suspect, funded by the US Government—thus my knowledge of </em> Reason <em> . I was a big fan of your work before I knew of </em> Reason <em> , however—before I knew of Blackwing, even. And to allay your misgivings, my request would not broach the same ethical quandaries as </em> Reason <em> tends to bring up. </em></p><p>
  <em> As a programmer myself, I would love to work with you. What I need is this: software that will enable me to calculate the probability of location, personality, and attributes of a person of interest. I'm sure you would be able to design something suitable, and you would be compensated handsomely. I do not know if you have ever considered early retirement or being able to finally open that music shop your wife has always dreamed of. We would make both of those possible. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I expect a reply. You have been extremely hard to reach, which, while understandable, means we will be even more persistent in getting a reply. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Best, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ken Adams</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Project Blackwing Superintendent </em>
</p><p>Richard stared at the email. Blackwing? Surely this had to be some sort of elaborate prank someone was pulling on him.</p><p>But something told him the person who sent the email wasn't the joking type. He read the email, then reread it again. He frowned and pushed his chair away from his computer, standing up and walking out of his office.</p><p>He walked across the office building to where Kate's office was, knocking on her door. "Come in!" she hollered, and he opened the door carefully.</p><p>Kate Anselm’s office was far more cluttered than Richard's, a feat within itself. One couldn't slam or swing open doors to Kate's office, lest they risk knocking over an unstable but important stack of books, or a filing project that was <em> just about </em> done, as soon as she found the time to alphabetize the remaining files from S to Z and found a more convenient place for her auxiliary desk lamp, which was quite suited to the unfiled stack and she couldn't get rid of in case of "emergency." Whatever emergency constituted the need for a second desk lamp, Richard never could seem to grasp.</p><p>"Richard!" She spun around in her chair, never as careful in her office as everyone else was. "How's my favorite computer buff, MacDuff?"</p><p>"I'm alright," he said, trying to keep his face expressionless. "How—how is WayForward doing?"</p><p>"As a company? We're doing just fine." Her brow furrowed. "Why? You aren't thinking of leaving, are you?"</p><p>"No!" he reassured her. "No, no. There's someone who wants me to take on another job, but I <em> don't </em> want to leave WayForward." He raised his eyebrows. "I don't want to take this other job. Can the company make sure I'm busy?"</p><p>"I thought you already were plenty busy," she said. "But sure, I can get you working on more projects." She frowned. "You know you can just say no, right?"</p><p>"They're pushy," he said. "Just--anything I can be doing to avoid thinking about it." He swallowed. "They called my old landline."</p><p>"Oh, shit," Kate said. "So are you finally going to get rid of the damn thing?"</p><p>"Susan insisted," Richard sighed. "And it wasn't a 'damned thing.' It was practically a member of the family."</p><p>"If by 'member of the family' you mean 'piece of crap that's been outdated for over a decade.'"</p><p>"Kate, stop it." He glared. "The point is, they are finding numbers and information about me they shouldn't have, and I'd like to be assigned more projects at work in order to not focus on it."</p><p>"Of course," she said. "Actually, I had an email come in this morning about a new project—a pretty big project—that this client needs someone to start as soon as possible. Said it was.... Here, let me pull it up." She scooted her chair back to her computer, typing quickly. "Ah! Here it is. 'What I need is this: software to calculate the probability of a location, personality, and attributes of a person of interest.'" She pushed away from her computer and smiled at him. "Kind of like a probability drive, but for humans?"</p><p>Richard walked out the door of the office.</p><p>"Richard!" Kate called after him. "Rich!" He could hear her scrambling through her office as he hurried back across the workplace. "MacDuff!" she shouted, finally in the doorway of her office. "Don't walk away from me like that!"</p><p>He stopped and turned around slowly. "Kate," he said. "I can't do that job."</p><p>"Sure you can," she said, arms crossed. "You're great at statistics. If anyone could generate a non-Bayesian maximum likelihood estimate for a multiparameter distribution integrating geographic and neurochemical uncertainty, then it would be you."</p><p>He frowned. "You could. You're more brilliant than me. Why don't <em> you </em> take on that task?"</p><p>"MacDuff, either you need to tell me what's going on, or that program is your assignment for the next week."</p><p>Richard looked at her, and then around the office, trying to form words and finding he had none. He had the very deep and uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched, that whatever he said to her would make it back to them immediately. "I'll tell you later, alright?" he said. "I'm sorry." She raised her eyebrows and he broke eye contact, turning away. "I'm going on break early," he mumbled. She watched him go back to his office, saying nothing.</p><p>Back in his office, Richard grabbed his bag and quickly checked his computer before leaving. He didn't have any new emails. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the office, only to hear the mobile phone inside start buzzing.</p><p>He closed his office door and locked it instead of answering the phone. He slipped out of the building, not bothering to check in again with Kate before going on his break. He needed to get out, out of the office, out of this building, out of this whole situation. But he had the nagging feeling that whatever he had got himself into unfortunately wouldn't be solved just by going on an early lunch break.</p><p>Richard stalked through the streets with his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed into his pockets, not going anywhere in particular. He tried to get away from the feeling that something was closing in on him, but the feeling seemed to be escalating minute by minute. <em> What would be so bad about taking the job, really? </em> part of him wondered. <em> If this Blackwing agency had contacted Kate, then it was much less of an invasion of privacy. Then there was no real reason to say no. </em> But it still bothered him—the fact that they knew about <em> Reason </em> . And, despite their assurances, he could read between the lines—they wanted him to make something like <em>that </em>—but more. And he had sworn to himself that he would never work for any government—especially the American government—ever again.</p><p>The promise was tempting. Strange that they were offering him so much for it. But who knows what they'd do with his program—especially if it was used to calculate people and probability relating to people. Surely it would be used for countless human rights violations! Not that his work on <em> Reason </em> hadn't been used for that, not that human rights had ever stopped him from coding before, not that the challenge of the program wasn't an interesting intellectual endeavor in itself. He was a grey shirt coder, he consoled himself. Sure, he'd made some programs for some nasty, terrible people in the past. Sure, he’d made programs that had made it easier to market to certain demographics, to build corporations’ finances up and tear consumer's suspicions down. But...</p><p>But <em> he </em> wasn't a bad person. It was just his job. And it was advancements, the way the world worked. If <em> he </em> didn't make the programs, someone else would. It was like the nuclear bomb. Even if they hadn't set it off, World War Two would have driven them to develop such a thing. <em> It wasn't Oppenheimer's fault, </em> he thought. <em> Building weapons of mass destruction doesn't make you the person who pushes the button. </em></p><p>Besides, the programs he had made recently were little bits of nothing-code, stuff that appeased whatever client WayForward had but wasn't really innovative. He'd been rereleasing newer versions of <em> Anthem </em> for the last few years and finding it a financially successful but intellectually unfulfilling venture. It kept his family fed. Not that Susan's job didn't bring home any money, but being a successful cellist wasn't something anyone went into for the financial benefits. But she didn't have to worry about that with him having the job at WayForward. Between her income and his income, they were more than happy. They had everything they could have ever wanted, besides maybe the music shop Susan had always dreamed of opening...</p><p>The music shop. The man from Blackwing had mentioned it in the email. How deep did the file that they had on Richard and Susan go to include their dreams and aspirations? It wasn't exactly a secret, but it was only something Susan discussed with those closest to her, embarrassed of being told it was unrealistic by her larger social circle. And yet these Blackwing people knew.</p><p>Richard paused, realizing that he had walked quite a way from the office building district where he worked and was now in a more residential area. He looked around, realizing he was exactly where the businesses stopped and the flats started, on a street of three-story buildings that often hosted both small businesses and flats in them. He looked up and stared at the building in front of him, realizing his feet had led him to 33 Peckender Street.</p><p>Peckender Street looked as bleak and run down as it had several years ago, when Richard had been a frequent visitor for about a week's time. It was where his notable acquaintance, Dirk Gently, had owned the top floor of the building and was using it to host his detective agency. What was on the top floor now, Richard did not know. He wondered about Dirk for the first time in several years. He wondered if Dirk was still there, in that space, rotting away with a secretary who hated him. He walked up to the building curiously and looked at the directory. First floor, the travel agency. Second floor, Dominique, French lessons. Third floor… Caroline, seamstress. He frowned. The writing for the directory seemed a bit weathered and the detective agency’s brass plaque was no more. Dirk had been gone for a few years by now.</p><p>Richard walked away from the building, feeling strangely unsettled that Dirk would have moved, despite the fact that he hadn't given Dirk Gently half a moment’s consideration over the past few years. <em> Maybe he's gone on to better and brighter things</em>, he consoled himself. But people like Dirk Gently didn't go on to better things. Richard knew that.</p><p>He didn't go back to work. Instead, he walked three miles to the arts district, to the tiny studio space where he knew Susan would be practicing. He entered the building quietly, slipping down the noisy halls where he could hear a trombone and bassoon working on some nasty duet. Her studio was at the end of the building, a small room with big windows overlooking the dull car park. He heard her presence before he could even see the door, a sweet and deep song emanating through the supposedly soundproof walls and out into the hall. He could picture her in his mind's eye, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, her eyes hard in concentration, lips quivering with the melody line. In front of the door to her studio, he peeked in and saw her just as he'd imagined. He watched her for a moment, gracefully bending the bow back and forth, bringing a deep emotional melody to life. He waited for a slight pause in her playing before knocking lightly and opening the door to her studio.</p><p>She looked up. Her eyes smiled but her lips quickly frowned. "Richard? What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at work?"</p><p>"Was that Vivaldi?" he asked.</p><p>"Yes," she said. "It's not like we haven't played it a dozen times already…  but it relaxes me. I wouldn’t mind playing that bit a hundred times over."</p><p>"It sounded great."</p><p>"Thank you, but," she frowned again. "Why are you here?"</p><p>"I had a rough morning," he said. Not technically a lie. "Weird fight with Kate. Just needed to get out."</p><p>"So you walked all the way over here? Richard, you could have at least phoned first!"</p><p>"I left my phone in the office," he answered evenly. "I wanted to know your opinion on something."</p><p>"You wanted to know my opinion so badly you walked all the way across town?" She paused. "This is about that old client of yours, isn't it? They contacted Kate, too?"</p><p>He sighed. "It might be. But... Well, I've been thinking about it."</p><p>"I thought you said you didn't want to do it. Under any circumstance."</p><p>"I'm still figuring that out," he said. "The program... it wouldn't be hard for me to write. I've made something very similar to it before."</p><p>"Richard, they've made you uncomfortable, haven't they?"</p><p>"They're just persistent," he said, trying to convince himself as much as her. "And... their offer is extremely generous."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"Susan, I need to think about the other people in my life. What <em> they </em> want and need. How me taking this job could help <em> them </em>."</p><p>"And who would this job be helping exactly?"</p><p>He smiled. "Do you still want to open that music shop?"</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Richard returned to work a few hours later. Kate glared from across the office, standing in front of her door holding a small cup of coffee. He avoided her eyes and ducked into his office.</p><p>He picked up his mobile phone and checked his missed calls. There was only a notification for one, and it was from Kate. He set the mobile phone down and turned on his monitor.</p><p>He read over the email Ken Adams had sent him once and then again once more. He felt himself wince at the mention of <em> Reason </em> but reminded himself of what he had realized on his walk—it wasn't the bomb-makers who pressed the button. The man who wired the electric chair was hardly an executioner. With that thought in mind, he clicked reply.</p><p>
  <em> Mr. Adams, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I think I would be interested in writing this program for you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Best, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Richard MacDuff.</em>
</p><p>He looked at the email for a long second before dragging his mouse to the corner of his screen and pressing "send."</p><p>Richard stared at his email screen before sighing and opening a new tab, finally checking on the work he needed to get done that day. Before he had time to check in on his work, his mobile phone started buzzing, sliding across his unorganized papers with every vibration. He hurriedly grabbed it and accepted the call.</p><p>"Richard MacDuff," said the American voice on the other line, "welcome to Blackwing."</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Notes about the Douglas Adams books and things I changed:</p><p>-The plot of the first Douglas Adam's book originally takes place in the late eighties, but I'm moving forward, probably to sometime in the 2000s. Richard is likely in his late thirties or early forties in this story.</p><p>-Richard's involvement with the program Reason in the book was implied to be pretty minimal. I'm reimagining it with him having slightly more of a hand in it, but a similar distaste for it. </p><p>-And just for clarification... Kate Anslem is NOT the Kate Schechter from the second Dirk Gently novel, they just both have the same first name because every fourth person in Dirk Gently as a universe has the same name (Susan Way, Susan Borton, etc, etc). </p><p>Hope you enjoyed! Until next time...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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